Book Sansa Source

i think i discussed some of this here, including how he writes danydrogo but that should not be your point of comparison for sansan. drogo and sandor are not the same type of character beyond superficial similarities. as before, i don't know what grrm has planned for them in twow, but i can talk about the blackwater bay scene. a theme with all of sansa's antagonists is that they seek to subjugate and weaponise her voice (and why she's associated with birds), the first thing we get to know about sansa is that she is an obedient girl and has been taught to fit the hegemonic social ideal of the noble lady, sandor very meanly identifies this as having the quality of parroting without reflection and it's something that's used against her by cersei, by the tyrells, and by petyr.

cersei's first villainous act in sansa's storyline is to make her pen that letter to robb of ned's treason which reads like sansa doing the lannisters' work by justifying ned's sentence to her family and urging them to renew their oaths instead of seeking justice, but as catelyn puts it, "This is Cersei's letter, not your sister's" then the wedding with tyrion where the lannisters make her say all those wedding vows ("Sansa did all that was required of her. There were prayers and vows and singing"), she's once again being made to say something for the benefit of her abusers that will further erode her autonomous existence. even her moment of courage where she reveals joffrey's character to olenna and margaery, ends up being useful information for the political ambitions of the tyrells only. petyr, of course, perfects this whole bit by beginning to consume her personhood by dictating to her what she can or cannot speak about in the vale, what she can be ("Do you think you can remember all that?" - "I hope. It will be like playing a game, won’t it?" - "Are you fond of games, Alayne?") the most notable one being the false testimony she gives of the circumstances of lysa's death by posing as his daughter, that's meant to protect petyr.

sandor is relevant to this theme, because like cersei & petyr, he too once attempted to seize sansa's voice.

He gave her arm a hard wrench, pulling her around and shoving her down onto the bed. “I’ll have that song. Florian and Jonquil, you said.” His dagger was out, poised at her throat. “Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life.”

the blackwater bay scene is doing a couple things, "sing for your little life" is stating the theme. sansa now sees that the courtesies that were drilled into her have helped enable her helplessness, but she has to keep singing them all the same in kl on pain of death: "she was a good girl and always remembered her courtesies." sandor's just making the threat immediate and direct here. her choice of song being gentle mother, font of mercy instead of the knight & maiden romance of florian & jonquil is obviously a plea to sandor to spare her but it's a prayer for sandor too because earlier in the chapter she says: "He is no true knight but he saved me all the same, she told the Mother. Save him if you can, and gentle the rage inside him." and sandor gets it because he's so ashamed by this whole encounter he takes it to his grave - "I took the bloody song, she never gave it" you see readers often grouping him together with petyr and cersei but the fact that he feels enough shame to flee her and seek some semblance of repentance in his next appearance is what favourably differentiates him from every other authority figure in sansa's chapters who's given her the little bird treatment.

the separation is intended to give them both individual development, so the next time they meet sandor is no longer the lannisters' dog and sansa, littlefinger's bird. no idea how they'll meet again but i'm leaning towards a reunion at least happening because of the way petyr and sansa mirror each other. "the unkiss", that is, sansa revising her blackwater bay scene with sandor in her recollections as having been kissed by sandor is possibly meant to mirror petyr's own reframing of his nonconsensual sexual encounter with lysa into a more acceptable one with catelyn. i don't agree that the romanticisation here is simply a coping mechanism, it's partly that, but it's also saying something else because petyr and sansa both share a childhood love for songs. this is obviously petyr's formative experience, he gets into a duel with brandon as the determined underdog and almost gets killed for it, doesn't win the hand of his lady love because of their class divide—and in his mind that's the only thing that was keeping them apart, because he believes it was catelyn who visited him that night, not lysa.

"Family, Duty, Honor meant I could never have her hand. But she gave me something finer, a gift a woman can give but once. How could I turn my back upon her daughter? In a better world, you might have been mine, not Eddard Stark’s. My loyal loving daughter . . ."

then/now

Sansa Stark in the Eyrie

Florian and Jonquil

 Sansa did all that was required of her. There were prayers and vows and singing, and tall candles burning, a hundred dancing lights that the tears in her eyes transformed into a thousand. Thankfully no one seemed to notice that she was crying as she stood there, wrapped in her father’s colors; or if they did, they pretended not to.

STARK & GREYJOY  (i had to draw something for them before the next episode *cries*)

so, let’s imagine this fanart is after the war(s) they both survived. Sansa is still the Lady of Winterfell, and she asks for Theon to stay to help the rebuilding of the North -and b/c she doesn’t want to lose anyone else. He gladly accepts. Winterfell is as much his home as the Iron Islands are, and he knows the Islands are in good hands. He becomes a valued adviser, a dear confidant and on occasion, an escort if needed. Their unique bond is evident to everyone around. Some whispers that the many wedding proposals rejected by Sansa are due to this bond between the now Lady of Winterfell and her shadow. But these are just whispers…